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Can someone tell me about Wild Talents? I'm looking for some superhero action and my experience with UA makes me want to try it out.
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Oct 15, 2014 13:06
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Strange Matter posted:Can someone tell me about Wild Talents? I'm looking for some superhero action and my experience with UA makes me want to try it out. It's a One Roll Engine game derived from Godlike, but has several refinements over it. You spend points to build up your stats, skills, and create superpowers. GM assigns points based on power level of the game - standard superhero PCs are 250 points, while cosmic heavy hitters are 500 points. I ran a 30 session campaign of it: http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/the-heroes-of-new-arcadia-a-superhero-campaign-for-wild-talents-and-base-raiders/ ORE is pretty front loaded in that it takes some effort to understand the matching dice mechanics, how to build custom powers, and combat. Fighting is particularly complex because it goes: declare, roll, resolve. Characters declare their actions, with the slower characters declaring first. This means you could choose to attack (and not defend) before you realize that two enemies are going to attack you. However, actions are resolved in the highest width roll and attacks reduce dice pools, so an action can be prevented if enough damage is done to the character. It's an interesting challenge but it takes some time to wrap your head around it, especially if you're used to more standard combat systems.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:02
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It's also worth pointing out that WT is intended for very powerful characters. That's a design point, not a bug. The power level is basically "Morrison-era JLA" and has the stated assumption that the GM and players trust each other to not just make game-winning characters. Just as an example: there's a sidebar about making a character who can turn off the sun. It'd cost you 84 of your starting 250 points, plus 8 more points if you want it to be permanent.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:11
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Strange Matter posted:Can someone tell me about Wild Talents? I'm looking for some superhero action and my experience with UA makes me want to try it out. I'm unaware of any other system that does superheroes as well, with the possible exception of Worlds in Peril that I've only played once, but it is utterly essential that you all build characters together with a lot of GM input and do some comparisons for sanity, fun and game balance. It's frighteningly easy to build utterly retarded characters, and super easy to accidentally gimp yourself and make a character who is worthless. Particularly with regards to survivability and the amount of damage you can deal out, you probably want a baseline for the whole party that nobody deviates much from. Point totals are semi-worthless for how powerful somebody is, because it's so easy to decost and upcost. I no longer use them as anything more than a guideline. Instead I ask people what powers they want, and then we build together to roughly the same level of power, compare point totals and add or subtract until we're roughly comparable. If you don't have any players who are as ruthlessly powergamey as one of my friends, this may not be necessary but you should be aware that it's a problem. That said, ORE is one of my favourite resolution mechanics and no other game lets you customise your powers as much as Wild Talents.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:44
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Thanks for the input folks. I've been reading through the Essentials guide and potentially preparing a playtest for this game, and I've got a question: what determines if an attack does Shock or Killing damage? As an example, one the test Talents I'm tentatively assembling controls air, and has an Attack Quality called Microburst, which attacks an enemy using a concussive blast of pressurized air. So far I've given it the Range and Mass Capacities, so it can attack at range and also cause knockback, but how do I determine what kind of damage it does? Based on the description of the Harm power from the Cafeteria, do I just need to write in the effect that it deals Shock and Killing Damage, or is that automatic as an element of it being an Attack Quality? If I wanted to could I say that it only does Shock Damage? EDIT: Okay I may have figured it out. Here's what I've put together so far as a possible test. Did I do this right? Anything major that I messed up? I'm not using any Hard or Wiggle Dice because I want to get the base mechanics down before I start messing with slightly more complex aspects. Jetstream Jackie Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 15:30
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I don't have the book with me, but I seem to recall Shock Only being an attack power flaw that you can take for a reduction of points. fake edit: yup, you've got that down. I would definitely avoid hard dice with that engulf attack, that would get downright unfun quickly. Looks good on the whole!
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Oct 16, 2014 17:58
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SageNytell posted:I don't have the book with me, but I seem to recall Shock Only being an attack power flaw that you can take for a reduction of points. fake edit: yup, you've got that down.
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Oct 16, 2014 18:04
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Here's the second Talent that I put together: Dwight the Titan Dwight has the ability to absorb materials around him and fashion them into a battle armor enhanced by his powers. This gives him Hyper-Body, highly damaging physical attacks, and enhanced defenses. I build his Defense Power based on the Heavy Armor power in the Cafeteria, with some slight changes. Instead of being Endless, it has a Duration of 10 minutes, and it requires available materials within 3 yards to activate. However, there's something that I may have done wrong, and I just want to confirm this. As I've written it now, when Dwight actives his Titan Armor, he gains +3d Hyper-Body, which means his total Body stat would be 7d, and his Brawling would be 7d+4d, meaning 10d with 1d as a penalty eater. I've also granted the Titan Armor an Attacks +2 quality. Looking at it, however, this seems totally redundant with Hyper-Body up and running, since Titan Armor is a 7d Power, meaning that if I were use the Titanic Strike Attack, I'd be rolling 7d instead of 10d. Of course, Titanic Strike has +2 SK Damage, so does that give it a significant advantage? Or should I just stick with the 10d total brawling?
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Oct 16, 2014 19:50
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If you wanted his Titan Armor to give him extra oomph on his punching people attacks, and you've already given him a large punching people pool, you can either build an Augments attack power that makes his punches do more damage or have more Mass Capacity or do Engulfs or something, or you can give the suit Hyperbrawl with a load of extras on it like more damage or any of the above. I'd probably do it the second way, but I'm sure you could make something work with the Augments.
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Oct 17, 2014 13:15
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Doodmons posted:If you wanted his Titan Armor to give him extra oomph on his punching people attacks, and you've already given him a large punching people pool, you can either build an Augments attack power that makes his punches do more damage or have more Mass Capacity or do Engulfs or something, or you can give the suit Hyperbrawl with a load of extras on it like more damage or any of the above. I'd probably do it the second way, but I'm sure you could make something work with the Augments. Oh jeez  Are you saying that if I put Augments on Titan Armor, which would cost all of 6 points (2 for the Attacks Quality, 4 for Augments), I could add a whole 7d to my Brawling Pool, and I'd literally have a total pool of like 18? You weren't kidding about it being trivial to create insanely powerful Miracles. I think I may avoid that one purely to keep things relatively sane. Also, can you let me know if I'm understanding Gobble Dice and Interference correctly? Gobble Dice: Gobble Dice seems to be just a goofy way of saying "if your roll Opposes another character's roll, and your set is at least as wide and high as his, you negate his roll." Am I interpreting that correctly? Interference: Interference appears to be a Super-Opposed Roll, in that you only need to beat the Height of the attack, not the Width. It looks like the book is saying that the GM should put hard limits on what stuff an Interference power can affect, otherwise you could just put 1hd in it and say that you can negate anything ever. Am I on the correct page with that? EDIT: Re:Augments. Actually I just read the part where it says that Augment can EITHER add a Power's Dice or its Extras, so I'll set it so that Titan Armor Augments Brawling with the +2 Attack (I'm not sure if this is what is intended, but I think it's fair, giving that I'm limiting the options). To balance out the cost, I added an Allergy to the Archetype, which is going to be an anti-retroviral compound that drains Willpower. Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 13:47
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Gobble dice don't necessarily negate the entire roll. If you ruin a set, they can usually fall back on a worse at from the same roll, if there are any left. You're gobbling individual dice. And 18d is mostly just useful for having eight dice to negate penalties and gobble dice. You're still probably not doing excessive amounts of damage, just hitting fairly reliably. You could easily have 10hd in your pool with augmented damage and just be literally punching heads off with every swing.
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Oct 17, 2014 14:38
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jagadaishio posted:Gobble dice don't necessarily negate the entire roll. If you ruin a set, they can usually fall back on a worse at from the same roll, if there are any left. You're gobbling individual dice. So let's say I'm rolling 10d Brawl and I'm being opposed. I roll two sets-- 3x10 and 2x5. My opponent also rolls a 3x10; since that beats both of my sets, he can gobble my 3x10 and force me to use my 2x5. Am I understanding that correctly?
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Oct 17, 2014 15:14
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I also like the part where Dwight can basically run up to any non-organic enemy and turn them into his suit of armor. Robots will not like fighting this fellow.  Edit: Strange Matter posted:I see. I wasn't clear on that. This is correct.
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Oct 17, 2014 15:17
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Strange Matter posted:I see. I wasn't clear on that. No. He uses two of that 3x10 to make your 3x10 into a 1x10. He uses the remaining width to turn your 2x5 into a 1x5. You don't need to gobble the entire set, just ruin it. That said, he might not have enough width remaining to gobble that 2x5. I forget how, exactly, gobble dice and order of actions work.
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Oct 17, 2014 15:18
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jagadaishio posted:No. He uses two of that 3x10 to make your 3x10 into a 1x10. He uses the remaining width to turn your 2x5 into a 1x5. You don't need to gobble the entire set, just ruin it.
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Oct 17, 2014 15:33
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Strange Matter posted:Oh that's right, I forgot that sets only need to get gobbled down to 1w to be effectively neutered. Right, because 1xanything is no longer a set.
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Oct 17, 2014 15:42
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Strange Matter posted:Gobble Dice: Gobble Dice seems to be just a goofy way of saying "if your roll Opposes another character's roll, and your set is at least as wide and high as his, you negate his roll." Am I interpreting that correctly? So if you got a 2x9 set that generates Gobble Dice, you get 2 Gobble Dice rated height 10 going off at speed 2. They can't Gobble anything faster than them, because a 3x1 attack resolves before you even get the Gobble Dice, and they can't Gobble anything higher than them because it's too powerful, so that 2x10 punch would get through. As covered earlier, you only need to get a set down to 1x to ruin it. So your 2x9 could ruin two sets of 2x8 or it could ruin a 3x7 if you had some Extra Fast on it. Interference is Gobble Dice's hard motherfucker ex-con older brother. The way Interference works is that it generates Gobble Dice of a height indicated by the interfering power, except they are automatically fast enough to block anything, and the power is rolled anew for each time it would take effect, with no upper limit on how many times it can proc a turn. Say you're getting attacked by a 3x10, a 2x9, a 2x6 and a 4x1 and you have a 2HD interferes defends. It's rolled separately for each attack, getting 2 super 10 gobble dice, obliterating every attack except the 4x1 which is reduced to a paltry 2x1. What's really crazy about Interferes is that it's basically its own step in resolution, which occurs before anything else is resolved. You declare you're using it in Declaration, you check to see if it went off in the roll phase and then you start taking dice out of everyone's pools before anything else happens. Interference is super good yo.
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Oct 18, 2014 13:11
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jagadaishio posted:No. He uses two of that 3x10 to make your 3x10 into a 1x10. He uses the remaining width to turn your 2x5 into a 1x5. You don't need to gobble the entire set, just ruin it. The bad guy's 3x10 action triggers, which generates 3 gobble dice of value 10. He can now apply these gobble dice to knock dice off any action someone else attempts to take. So you say "I am using my 3x10 to attack". He says "I gobble two of them". You say "nuts". Depending on the exact ruleset either you're out of luck, or can say "OK I'll use the 2x5 instead". If the latter, the bad guy can now say "I eat one of the 5s too". Where this rule gets really important is when you're defending against multiple people. So let's say you and your friend are attacking this guy (or you're being attacked by two guys). The defender rolls a 2x10, the attackers roll 2x9 and 2x8. Despite only having one success, the defender can break both attacks.
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Oct 18, 2014 15:53
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Hi! Slowly reading through the thread and other works by Greg Stolze. A friend of mine (ex-GM, current player for Pathfinder) has been trying to get people into UA for years, because it's the best game he's never played. I finally bit after reading through some of the "what you know" rumors, and finding them amazing plot hooks that I want to incorporate into everything and run wild. I'm only on pg24/31 so far in the thread, and haven't had time to fully read through the ORE rules (though they seem super neat and REIGN is next up in my list of games to try and run, after UA), but wouldn't reversing the order of Hit Targets work to alleviate the "Leg/Torso shots easiest to dodge, headshots hardest" issue? The probabilities stay the same, not sure if it messes up anything else, but suddenly headshots are extremely easy to dodge as 1's, and called shots to Torsos and such are much more reliable. Also question on UA; using Entropomancy, is there a limit to the number of risks you can take concurrently to build charges? Say, for example, generating a major charge for risking yourself and a loved one by holding your wife close, and playing russian roulette with the revolver pressed to a gas canister. Since it needs to be a lethal threat, say the main gas supply for your house or cooker or what have you, something that will explode when pierced and spray you with shrapnel, and has a 1/6 chance of killing both of you. If the first round doesn't kill you, and gives you a Major charge, can you then go again to grab another major charge? Either spin the barrel for another 1/6 chance, or keep going for a 1/5 chance if the concurrent risk needs to be higher in order to qualify? Edit; more appropriate/better way of phrasing the question - Can you go Double or Nothing on generating a Major charge, as an Entropomancer? Ambi fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Oct 30, 2014 |
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Oct 30, 2014 08:01
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I'd look at that as an attempt to cheat the universe. The universe doesn't like that. Also, generating just one major charge has some pretty crazy effects on the environment it's created in, with unnatural phenomena having a high chance of occurring. If I was the GM, I'd make something weird happen to the chance of a second charge.
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Oct 30, 2014 10:19
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We've always run it that, yeah, you can just go again if you want. It's in a similar vein to how the bonus damage on their blast works, you can push as much as you like as long as you're willing to take the risk. That said, it's one of those things where you need to make 100% clear that they will die if things go wrong and you should prevent a cat-piss guy from making an Entropomancer, trying to get 3 major charges and rolling another Entropomancer to do it again if he dies, for example. As much as I like Entropomancy it is a difficult one to have in your game considering its entire theme is that the character will either die or get insane power. As for the ORE question, I'm reasonably sure the head being 10 is to make headshots very scary and increase the lethality of the system. If you want to play a less lethal game then go for it, I can't think of anything fundamental that reversing the hit locations would mess up - although you'd need to adjust a couple of the Martial Styles, like Insouciant Monkey.
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Oct 30, 2014 14:37
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Righto! Not a situation that's likely to come up, I was just wondering if it was actually possible, given Entropomancer and Epideromancers have an "easier" time of gaining Major charges than most adepts, with correspondingly more consequences to doing so. I just thought it'd probably be allowed for Entropomancer because it seems totally in-line with their magic style to gamble your life and the life of a loved one even after you've got a major charge, just to try and grab another while you can. re: ORE, I figured it might be one way to address the weird issue of how sets and gobble dice works means that it's easier to dodge getting an arrow in the torso as opposed to an arrow to the head, though I just got caught up with the thread today, and someone addressed a similar question a few pages back - helmets are invaluable, it seems.
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Oct 30, 2014 14:46
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It was pointed out in the fluff that most of entropomancer's charges are wasted on getting them out of trouble they get into in order to get more charges. So, what I'm saying, is to make sure the player is scared enough of you so that he'll get plenty of spare minors before attempting something deliberately stupid. And that he has a backup charsheet, I guess.
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Oct 30, 2014 15:01
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Lichtenstein posted:It was pointed out in the fluff that most of entropomancer's charges are wasted on getting them out of trouble they get into in order to get more charges. So, what I'm saying, is to make sure the player is scared enough of you so that he'll get plenty of spare minors before attempting something deliberately stupid. This is a good point. A major charge is a big deal - once a campaign, if that. It is something that a whole campaign can revolve around, if your players are game. There should be some pretty big madness checks when it comes to entropomancer and epideromancer charges. Is your mage that dead to the world that he'd play knifey-spoony with his own eyeball or gamble with his family's life? If the entropomancer is using his own kids as a source of potential charges, I hope you're hitting him in the sanity meters as often as possible.
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Oct 30, 2014 16:26
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One thing that the corebook doesn't really make too clear is that not all adepts even know how to get Major charges. I've always talked with my players about it if they want to play adepts, because there's probably degrees of obsession to how into getting mojo someone is. Not everyone dares to shoot for the big score.
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Oct 30, 2014 19:50
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If I had an Entropomancer player get a major charge in the way you describe and then immediately try for a second one, i'd see to it that he was sidetracked by some major unnatural phenomena. There has to be a Room of Renunciation tailored to that kind of insane risk. At the very least i'd be inclined to have his wife draw a gun of her own (which she has now had all day, thanks unnatural probability-fuckery) and demand that he not do this. Mexican standoff between a mage, his beloved, and a gas canister sounds more exciting than just rolling the dice a second time.
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Oct 30, 2014 20:23
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All the fiction-based examples of Entropomancers getting a major involve them killing the other person/people they're risking, so I think there's definitely supposed to be some sacrifice going on. Epideromancers can get majors easily, apparently, but of course there's only so much you can permanently mutilate yourself and you're gonna have to spend a lot of time in the hospital, probably.
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Oct 30, 2014 20:55
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Effectronica posted:All the fiction-based examples of Entropomancers getting a major involve them killing the other person/people they're risking, so I think there's definitely supposed to be some sacrifice going on. Epideromancers can get majors easily, apparently, but of course there's only so much you can permanently mutilate yourself and you're gonna have to spend a lot of time in the hospital, probably. There's one in one of the books that's two Entropomancers in a car chase and the driver makes the passenger play Russian Roulette with him and pull the trigger for him while they're driving and the gun goes off and the car goes wildly out of control and does like eighteen flips and the passenger walks out unscathed and because of this he's basically loving Jesus. Great poo poo. Major charges: The Best.
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Oct 30, 2014 21:24
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There's another good example in Godwalker. Spoiler, because it happens right towards the end. The two Entropomancers (husband and wife, divorced, realise they still love each other) stand side to side and play Russian Roulette. They have their heads pressed together; the gun they're using's so powerful there's a good chance it'll kill them both if it goes off. She pulls the trigger and it kills her, but he's still alive and has the charge. He uses it to undo what just happened, and changes it so that he's the one who pulls the trigger instead. He dies, she gets the charge.
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Oct 31, 2014 04:46
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Actually, further expanding on my question: is it possible to repeatedly gain charges from the same source at all? Like for example if a videomancer becoming a main lead on his fetish show, would he generate a major charge each time a new episode was aired?
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Oct 31, 2014 11:25
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Ambi posted:Actually, further expanding on my question: is it possible to repeatedly gain charges from the same source at all? I think so. Of course, adepts try not to draw attention, especially when they're trying to achieve massive power. Starring on TV seems like a good way to get attacked.
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Oct 31, 2014 11:56
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That's one of the prices of Power, after all. (and one of the major themes of UA as a game). If a videomancer shows up on TV as the lead of his or her fetish show you can be drat sure every duke, every guy or girl who thinks they are dukes, the Sleepers, the New Inquisition and maybe at least several high-powered avatars and/or even a Godwalker will all aim their sights directly at the videomancer.
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Oct 31, 2014 12:04
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Jenx posted:That's one of the prices of Power, after all. (and one of the major themes of UA as a game). If a videomancer shows up on TV as the lead of his or her fetish show you can be drat sure every duke, every guy or girl who thinks they are dukes, the Sleepers, the New Inquisition and maybe at least several high-powered avatars and/or even a Godwalker will all aim their sights directly at the videomancer. The other price, of course, is the obsessions that are required to even be an adept. A videomancer's need to see their show every time it's broadcast may make their ability to remain on it in doubt, the entropomancer's willingness to sacrifice their wife for magical power will have terrible consequences for that relationship even if it doesn't kill her, and so on. Getting a major charge is dangerous because of what happens when you have it, but it's also because of the extreme behaviour you need to put in to get them.
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Oct 31, 2014 12:34
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Also let's not forget that getting a major charge automatically sets off magical phenomena from the major phenomena table. So that Videomancer starring on his fetish show is likely as not going to make the whole set erupt into chaos as poo poo starts setting on fire, people hallucinate, the furniture comes alive and ghosts start coming out of the loving walls. He's probably not starring on the show again after that and it's not going to be on TV again for a while, if ever. Hell, Major supernatural phenomena can lead to people dying. And that Entropomancer is going to be dealing with the same sort of poo poo as well as the drug-fuelled chaos rush of an Entropic Major Charge. He'll be lucky if the gun and the gas can are still there for round 2.
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Oct 31, 2014 12:55
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If you're not playing adept behavior as seriously weird and alienating to everyone around them, you're not playing UA. The videomancer who is able to get a part on the show he loves and not a restraining order from the show runners is a serious outlier.
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Oct 31, 2014 13:28
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Jenx posted:That's one of the prices of Power, after all. (and one of the major themes of UA as a game). If a videomancer shows up on TV as the lead of his or her fetish show you can be drat sure every duke, every guy or girl who thinks they are dukes, the Sleepers, the New Inquisition and maybe at least several high-powered avatars and/or even a Godwalker will all aim their sights directly at the videomancer. That reminds me. Peter Capaldi is a videomancer. His show is Doctor Who. What sort of major charge shenanigans is he going to be getting into now?
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Oct 31, 2014 15:08
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Videomancers would probably be breaking taboo if they became regular cast members on their show. Their whole thing is about being an obsessive fan, and becoming part of the show is incompatible with that image, unlike getting to make a special guest appearance through how big of a fan they are.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:21
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I feel like a videomancer with his own show would be like one of those old child stars who do nothing else ever, and make their whole living going to 3rd-tier conventions and hoping against hope someone will ask for their autograph for $20. I do have to wonder how videomancy works with, say, Netflix.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:27
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Evil Mastermind posted:I feel like a videomancer with his own show would be like one of those old child stars who do nothing else ever, and make their whole living going to 3rd-tier conventions and hoping against hope someone will ask for their autograph for $20. I know Greg Stolze said they would be focussing entirely on new stuff but it would be useful if they at least mentioned how some of the old stuff has been affected, like videomancy in an age with DVRs and Netflix.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:31
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Evil Mastermind posted:I feel like a videomancer with his own show would be like one of those old child stars who do nothing else ever, and make their whole living going to 3rd-tier conventions and hoping against hope someone will ask for their autograph for $20. I'm pretty sure that UA3 was always going to cut videomancy even before they decided to emphasize all-new avatars, adept schools, and the like. It just doesn't fit with streaming video services.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:34
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